OT: Shanahan Gives Torres 25 Game Suspension

Shanahan gives Raffi Torres 25 games for his hit on Marian Hossa (which sent Hossa to the hospital in a neck brace and ruled him out for the next two games). I agree with Shanahan that his hit was interference, targeting the head, and there is no question it was charging.

Brutal, brutal hit that certainly deserves a suspension, but 25 games? Here is a list of the longest suspensions in NHL history, and this doesn't seem to fit the mold of the top few, IMO.

That's not to downplay the brutality of Torres' hit, and the fact that there was no call on the ice is inexcusable. The correct call would be a major penalty and game misconduct for charging, and I would have tacked on an interference minor as well. This was handled terribly on-ice.

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

games seems about right to me. Since Mr Bettman came on the scene, he has tried to "clean up" the image of hockey. I can remember when the NHL NEVER gave out suspensions. Justice was always delivered on the ice. Now with a kinder, gentlemanly game, fights are all but gone.

When I played many moons ago, refs rarely called penalties and the game went on. I would like to see the statistics of time loss due to on-ice injuries between 1980 and now. I bet the number is dramatically higher now because of the reduction in fights.

Twenty five seems excessive to me, as its one of the longest in NHL history and wasn't nearly as egregious as some others. Combine the fact that its Hossa so its even more of a charge as the league only protects Stars and punishes scrubs. The cleaning up of hockey hasn't actually changed anything or occured IME.

History is written by the victors-Winston Churchill

Well, the NHL was very effective in getting rid of things like hooking and holding, but they haven't committed to doing the same for hits to the head/reckless play.

I agree that the suspension is overboard, and the NHL, NHLPA and the officials should sit down and come up with a book of guidelines for supplemental discipline. No guidelines will be able to cover everything, but "hit away from the play targeting head and resulting in immediate injury" being a presumed three or four games (and maybe add a multiplier like 1.25, 1.5, 2 for previous history) would help reduce those hits and stop bitching from fans.

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

History is written by the victors-Winston Churchill

25 games is a little outrageous, I am still in shock over Webers blatant head shoving. So I guess what we are saying is that make sure your player goes down, and if you can afford it, and sits out a game.

That's a lengthy suspension. If Phoenix magically has a deep playoff run, the magnitude of this suspension increases dramatically. I'm not sure what the playoff vs. regular season game suspension equivalency would or should be, but this suspension really has teeth if Phoenix magically makes it to the Stanley Cup Finals.

I assume Torres' repeat offender status really inflated this suspension, combined with the fact that Hossa may miss significant time.

said the other day on the RIFF that he would like to see a game for game suspension plus 10. In other words, as long as your "victim" was off the ice, so were you. You could only get back on the ice 10 games after the injury was over and the player played in a regular season game.

While that sounds like a good idea on the surface, what if the injury sustained is completely disproportionate to the penalty? You could have a hit that was ruled clean on the ice, have Shanahan decide to review and suddenly be out for the rest of the season. The boarding penalty is far too vaguely written, and too many possibilities for an injury from a fairly tame penalty like tripping or holding exist to tie penalty length to injury.

Edit: Now that I think about it, this should be the default position for match penalties. And yes, I realize Bertuzzi would not be playing in the NHL right now with that rule in place.

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

I can't support a game for game basis for suspensions.
The hits are illegal, or they aren't. We'd end up with illegal hits that don't cause injury being less punished than legal hits that do cause injury (oh wait that happens, but it would be codified).

Then you could also get into murky water, a 4th line winger is suddenly shut down for the playoffs when he was hit by a Star? It would happen.

Redmond needs to just shut up. All he does is bitch and moan about reffing, puck luck and suck Hollands dick.

History is written by the victors-Winston Churchill

You know he was a former Wing and a multiple time 50 goal scorer? He's not just some talking head who has no idea what happens on a hockey rink. He didn't retire because he wasn't very good. He retired because of a bad back.

Yeah, I understand what he has done and accomplished. That doesn't excuse him from being able to spout off on anything he wants and never be quesitoned. Look at what this board does once a month whenever Braylon opens his mouth.

3rd Paragraph was simple frustration. I muted the game last night. At some point he needed to just say Good Job Nashville, or something along those lines.

I understand he can't criticize Holland very much, but to blindly praise everything that he does today off of yesteryears accomplishments doesn't work for me. Combine that with being semi-distracted and even more frustrated with the tigers and finals led to my thoughts being quite disjointed.

History is written by the victors-Winston Churchill

If you really wanted a detached announcer you could have flipped on CNBC, the other channel the game was on. I love FSD for what Mickey brings, which is homerism. He doesn't pretend to not be upset when the refs make a bad call, or pretend not to be upset when the refs are calling too many ticky-tack penalties. I guess some aren't fans of the homer announcer, but I love it.

Repeat status is the key. I hardly follow hockey, but after watching the NHL video and seeing him hit 5 or 6 guys in the head I think he should sit out all of next year. The hit wouldn't have bothered me much if he ran into his chest, but he clearly went for his head. No excuse; ring him up.

Given the fact that Torres will likely appeal this suspension it could be that Shanahan was anticipating that. Hence why he is starting at 25, but even if it gets worked down to 10-15 games it comes off as better than the 25, but still severe.

If I'm thinking of the right guy, he's been suspended twice in the last year. Last year in the playoffs and then again at the beginning of the season this year. If it was Torres I'm thinking of, he has gotten off with a wrist slap previously for actions which were egregious in my opinion. I'm happy that someone like him is FINALLY getting what he deserves. I don't think he's any better than Matt Cooke with the Pens, who was basically told that the next time he went head hunting he may as well start looking for a new profession.

I hope Torres takes this to heart andthat this starts giving people the idea it's not acceptable to TRY to end another player's career.

If he got a 12.5 game suspension doubled for past behavior, that's fine with me. My problem (and I wrote this above) is that we don't know how much those past infractions played into the suspension. To me, 25 is excessive for this hit; that number might well be appropriate given past behavior, but we would need to know some kind of baseline to establish that.

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

Like I said, he was suspended last year in the playoffs for this hit and again early this season for basically the same thing. I thought he was up for a 20 game suspension, due to his history, this past fall based on the suspensions to Wisniewski and Brendan Smith.

I thought he should have gotten 20 this fall with his history and I think 40 this time. 25 seems outrageous only because his discipline in the past has been a joke compared to what some other players have received.

Do I think Shannahan's trying to make up for what he did starting with Weber, and including Neal? Yes.
But do I think Torres is one guy who has enough history of doing this same thing to make this a realistic ban? Yes.

Shanahan should come out and say, "I double suspensions if the penalty is similar to a previous penalty the same season" then. Again, I agree that hockey needs to do a better job getting rid of hits to the head and reckless play, and the best way to do that is to sit a guy down without a paycheck for a while. Currently, though, this is the second longest (?) suspension in NHL history, and this hit doesn't fit when considering what someone like McSorley or Bertuzzi got from the league.

It'd just be much easier to judge how harsh a penalty is if we knew how past behavior played into suspension length.

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

I believe this is his fifth time talking to shanny/Campbell. That along with this hit, this suspension is deserved. Now if they just stick with this type of punishment, no matter if the guy is hurt or not. Someone does something illegal, suspend him. If they want to use prior incidents fine, but screw the 2500 fines. Suspend them 2 games minimum for head shots in this playoff. Go into the CBA this offseason and hash it out in there with the NHL & NHLPA. Consistency is key

Torres is multiple time offender who did a similar head hunting type hit to the Hawks Brent Seabrook in last year's playoffs when he was a Canuck.

I'm a Wings fan who lives in Chicago, so as an outside observer looking in Shanny had no choice but to do something drastic. Is 25 too much? Maybe. But if it curbs what the head office deems as dirty play these days, then I'm sure they will feel it was a very just suspension.

Given the suspension Matt Cooke got for his crack into Ryan McDonough's head last year that merited 17 games it's not overly surprising that Torres got 25 games. There was something of a precedent set with that suspension along with the fact hat Torres is a repeat offender.

It's a very odd world that discipline in the NHL occupies these days and I, for one, am sad if Brendan Shanahan is now nothing more than a lackey and yes man for Gary Bettman and his underlings...but, really, how else do you explain 25 games for Torres and $2500 for Shea Webber?

If the haters don't hate you then you're doing something wrong. - David Cone

A 25-game suspension is completely appropriate. If the only way that hockey players will respect each other is by taking away the right to play the game, then that is what is necessary. For the many reasons Shanahan pointed out, Torres made a completely unnecessary play that violated at least 3 NHL guidelines.

The headshots have got to stop and the NHL knows it, lest it gets hundreds of lawsuits thrown at it the way the NFL is under attack.

And please, none of this "this is how it used to be handled." No more of that BS rationale. Head shots can ruin peoples' lives and they are completely unnecessary.

about "that's how it used to be handled", but somewhere along the line we went from McSorley getting 23 games to Torres getting 25. Those are so completely different that I want more than Bettman saying "we're cracking down" or Shanahan saying the same thing.

It's fine if we get reasons for it (and I would love to see harsher penalties for hits like this) but I haven't heard any rationale for these changes, or why Shanahan gave 25 games for this hit compared to, say, Hagelin's three. Somewhere along the line Torres' hit was considered eight times worse than Hagelin's, and while I'm not trying to sit here and rip on him, his hit was brutal as well.

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

A couple muscles contract at different intervals that are tiny, one of those hits happens .05 of a second earlier or later, the hit occurs against a brace in the boards or whatever, and Hossa could be skating while Alfredsson is laid up in a hospital bed with life altering injuries.

I would give Torres the nod for worse hit, but there certainly wasn't anything schoolboyish about Hagelin and his elbow to the head, and I'd like to know the arithmetic that gets us from three games to twenty-five (not saying either is right or wrong, just that I'd like to see the work behind the numbers).

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

I'm just saying that wouldn't surprise me if that had something to do with. There's been no consistency and trying to guess what they'll do on every incident is pointless. I wouldn't have guessed this for Torres. Does he deserve it? Yep. But with the way these things have been handed who the hell knows. This has everything to do with his prior incidents IMO.

He was headhunting. He left his feet. He's done this before. I think he should be banned for a full year. Enough of this. I like hard-hitting hockey, but guys that are targetting other players' heads should be dealt with seriously. This wasn't an accident. He left his feet, full speed and drove his shoulder into his head.............that's not hockey, that's an assault.

A match is an on-ice penalty, it wouldn't be assessed by the league office. FWIW, I don't think I would call a match in 99% of anything resembling "hockey plays". This type of match is usually reserved for actions completely outside the scope of the game, like a punch to the back of the head/horsecollar (Bertuzzi), playing T-Ball with your stick (McSorley) or stomping a player with your skate (Simon). Even with an illegal checking motion like Torres', I don't think you would find much support for a match call within NHL officiating circles.

When I've helped teach referee seminars, the standard we're taught to teach referees is "OH SHIT" to call a match. As in, oh shit, I cannot believe I just saw that happen. As a general rule, if you're not trying to figure out whether to call the police/security, it probably isn't a match.

"We bring you to Michigan to take care of Michigan; your job is to protect that block M."
-Carol Hutchins

I understand in these days type of hockey, my question was any more. Rule 21.1 in the NHL used to make it quite easy which was my point. I think Brendan Smith got one in a pre-season game that got him a trip to N.Y. I remember games at Olympia when there fences, that would have made Zets face a little raw.

...seem to be assuming that the penalty should be proportional to the brutality of the conduct, hence the comparisons to Bertuzzi and McSorley.

But there's another way of looking at it that seems to me to apply to this particular hit, which is that to act as a deterrent the penalty needs to be proportional to the potential gain to the offending team. Targeting an opposing star early in a playoff series has a payoff; to discourage it there has to be a corresponding penalty.

Does a major penalty offset the loss of Hossa for the rest of the series? Does the loss of Torres for the rest of the series offset it? Some of you may be more impressed than I am by Torres's hockey skills but it seems to me that even with the current suspension the Coyotes may have come out ahead on the deal.

And this is twice in two years that it's happened. At this point I think the only way to make sure it stops is to send a message to Torres that his ability to make a living playing hockey is in jeopardy if he continues to headhunt.

He was then smacked down by bettman and the gm's because they right like being without players on the ice. There have been rumors to that effect all year.
I think it's most likely it'd he had his way, more suspensions would be like this.

after seeing the video once, i thought 25 games was long, but after reading shany's explanation I thought it was appropriate. I wonder how other players feel about it. Wasn't the whole point of him taking this position is to give a player's perspective on what is 'dirty' and what isnt'?